Comments on: Please tell me that this isn’t going to be OUR strategyhttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2011/08/04/35829
News, analysis and fact-checking of anti-gay rhetoricTue, 03 Mar 2015 18:11:14 +0000hourly1By: Theohttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2011/08/04/35829/comment-page-1#comment-101075
Sun, 07 Aug 2011 19:56:47 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=35829#comment-101075I have yet to see any reporting as to whether the anti-gay repeal effort is a serious effort with the requisite million dollar budget to collect a sufficient number of signatures. There are many, many proposed referenda that never make it. Not clear whether this effort has meat on the bones, given the obsession of the Religious Right with gay issues, I assume that it does.

Assuming that it does make it onto the ballot, it would need to be actively opposed. “JCF” above, doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about. The proposed repeal is nothing like Colorado’s Amendment 2. The repeal simply eliminates a recently passed statute and returns the law to the status of a few weeks ago. In that regard, it is little different from Maine’s Question 1, which repealed a marriage equality law, but made no other changes to the law. You will note that there was not a single lawsuit filed to challenge the constitutionality of Question 1 after it passed.

By contrast, Amendment 2 changed the Colorado constitution to prohibit all governmental entities at any level – from the state legislature to state courts to the lowest clerk in the smallest CO town – from enacting any law or regulation that would “entitle any person or class of persons to have or claim any minority status, quota preferences, protected status or claim of discrimination.” It was the most devastating – and the most diabolically clever – weapon our adversaries had ever devised, because its effect would be to instantly destroy decades of gay rights efforts, even while the true scope of the measure was not readily apparent to the layperson.

]]>By: David C.http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2011/08/04/35829/comment-page-1#comment-100740
Sat, 06 Aug 2011 06:06:49 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=35829#comment-100740The best thing that could happen to better regulate the gathering of signatures for referenda is to outlaw the use of paid signature gatherers.
]]>By: Matthttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2011/08/04/35829/comment-page-1#comment-100631
Fri, 05 Aug 2011 20:01:22 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=35829#comment-100631@ JCF and EZam:

What’s the argument for having a judge declare that the FAIR education law not be subject to a citizen recall?

I’m aware of Romer v. Evans but I don’t see how it’s parallel.

]]>By: J. Peronhttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2011/08/04/35829/comment-page-1#comment-100629
Fri, 05 Aug 2011 19:40:38 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=35829#comment-100629The labour unions are doing precisely this sort of tactic in California. Friends of mine do petititoning to earn income. They said the unions have continually come up with ways to destroy petitioning in the state.

In one case they wanted to scuttle a campaign collecting signatures and went out to “hire” the best petitioners for another campaign. The other campaign collected signatures for NO reason whatsoever. It had no legal standing at all. They paid a higher rate to soak up the petitioners. In one case the best among them were just told to sit in a building under their supervision each day for pay, doing nothing, so they couldn’t collect other signatures.

People petition in front of stores and most stores allow one such petitioner at a time. The unions would send people out to those spots to “petition” to close off the spot so others, with real petitions, couldn’t be there. At other times they had “employees” of the union watching for people collecting petitions. If they saw any a team of them would surround the individual and start yelling at one one who tried to sign the petition.

The unions are not particularly targeting that petition, they have other targets that they find more appropriate for their agenda. So they aren’t trying to use thuggish tactics to protect the gay community, they are after other petitions. Once ECQA announced they were going “progressive” and putting gay issues lower on the burner I dropped all support of them.

]]>By: Ben in Atlantahttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2011/08/04/35829/comment-page-1#comment-100619
Fri, 05 Aug 2011 18:37:41 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=35829#comment-100619As a progressive, I’m often irritated by your writing. I think I’ll skip the rant this time. There is more than one way to be.
]]>By: EZamhttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2011/08/04/35829/comment-page-1#comment-100610
Fri, 05 Aug 2011 17:51:34 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=35829#comment-100610A judge just removed the proposed San Francisco Circumcision ban from the ballot. We should try doing the same instead of wasting millions trying (and failing) to fight it.
]]>By: Timothy Kincaidhttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2011/08/04/35829/comment-page-1#comment-100604
Fri, 05 Aug 2011 17:11:05 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=35829#comment-100604Mario,

I’m totally with you. And it serves the dual purpose of informing the public (and ourselves) about to whom they really owe a debt. When you start looking at the list, the names are staggering.

(Only one difference, I would use “not heterosexual” as the understanding of being gay may not exactly match up with some folks who clearly were not heterosexual.)

One other idea:

Commercial opens by panning from a diverse class of students to a teacher showing them pictures saying, “Here’s Martin Luther King writing from the Burmingham Jail, here’s Cesar Chavez organizing farm workers, here’s Betsy Ross sewing the first flag” but every picture she puts up is of a middle aged white man.

“Contributions to our state and culture have come from all kinds of people and some of them were gay. But there are those who want to keep that a secret. let’s not alter history because of bigotry”

]]>By: Mariohttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2011/08/04/35829/comment-page-1#comment-100593
Fri, 05 Aug 2011 16:19:32 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=35829#comment-100593Look, simple enough: commercial opens with pictures and contributions of LGBT persosn that contributed to our American culture and past, just note their names and contributions. Fade to black and say, “Some peoe don’t want children to learn about these great people and what they contributed to our livelihood… Just because they happen to be gay. Let’s not alter history because of bigotry.”
End of commercial!
]]>By: Matthttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2011/08/04/35829/comment-page-1#comment-100576
Fri, 05 Aug 2011 14:23:36 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=35829#comment-100576The ballot-box method for getting Prop 8 overturned involves gathering signatures, doesn’t it?

Are the powers-that-be in California simply assuming that Olson and Boies will be successful?

I don’t know how WE are going to win but I know how THEY have always won and how we have always lost.

Working in close collaboration with our partners, including Service Employees International Union, we are fighting back.

It sounds to me like the same exact strategy is being pursued as in past times — forming progressive alliances with other groups generally identified as Democratic or liberal-leaning, building you-scratch-my-back coalitions, and then hoping that that gets us to 50 + 1. So if “we have always lost” by going that route, these “Indians might steal our identities!” radio ads are going to make the difference?

]]>By: elaygeehttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2011/08/04/35829/comment-page-1#comment-100538
Fri, 05 Aug 2011 09:28:27 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=35829#comment-100538He’s right that the reason the far right gets what it wants is that they fight it to win it and Progressives are wishy washy and aren’t.

Wanna save your country from facism? You have to (not literally) kill some people to win the war.